Ropes in IIM – I, SQ Centre, COPC Inc. and other leading services brands to launch the first of its kind institute in the country

Mumbai: Aegis Limited, a leading global business process outsourcing (BPO) provider and part of the Essar Group, today announced that it has joined hands with leading academic and industry partners to launch the first of its kind education venture in the country, which promises to fulfill a very clear need gap faced by the services industry in finding the right talent.

Aegis, Indian Institute of Management – Indore (IIM- I), Service Quality (SQ) Centre (SQ Centre), and Customer Operations Performance Center (COPC Inc.) have come together to launch Institute of Customer Experience Management (ICEM), a first-of-its-kind institute designed to train students specifically for the service industry (retail, BFSI, ITeS etc.) through focusing on the customer experience and customer life time value. Subir Ghosh, President, President - Aegis Global Academy, is spearheading the venture.

The inaugural centre opens in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, with the first batch commencing classes from August 2010. Spread across 40,000 square feet of state-of-the-art infrastructure, ICEM plans an intake of 400 students for the 15-month post graduate residential programme, which has been specially designed by IIM- I, SQ Centre, and COPC Inc. in active consultation with the industry.

Aparup Sengupta, Managing Director and Global CEO, Aegis Ltd., said, “India is a service economy and hence for the services sector, customer is the very raison d'être. While we have several institutes teaching other business aspects like finance and marketing, academically customer experience management has still not found its due recognition even though the industry very well understands and appreciates its importance. This disconnect results in huge training cost and re-orientation for the employer and employee. We are extremely delighted to have found such able partners in IIM-I, SQ Centre, and COPC Inc. in this novel venture to prepare future-ready managers.”

The unique highlight of the programme is its 65% weightage to work experience comprising managing live customer channels of contact and internship opportunities, and 35% weightage to theory, totally leading to 100% job readiness. Students can opt to specialize in any of the five sectors, viz. telecom, banking, insurance, retail, and ITes. Besides IIM – I faculty, SQ Centre trainers, and COPC auditors, the students would be taught by industry professionals, giving them the right mix of theory and industry knowledge.

“There is an urgent need of the hour for people specialized in the aspects of customer experience management and customer lifecycle management, concepts that drive profitability in the services industry. We are happy to partner with Aegis and bring to forth this unique programme which we are confident will find takers from the industry. After all, it is designed by the industry itself,” said Prof Ravi Chandran, director, Indian Institute of Management – Indore.

“SQ Centre, with her extensive global experience in defining and certifying customer experience management, is the de facto standard for excellence. This marks our first foray in India partnering an education institute in India to instill the concept and importance of customer experience right at the foundation level itself. We are pleased to share our insights in customer experience management which will definitely add value to the industries,” said Dr. Buck P. Tang, Group Director and Principal Consultant, Service Quality (SQ) Centre.

“As the leading authority on quality standards for processes in the service industry, our standards provide a high performance set of global best practices and benchmarks that simultaneously increase service quality and customer satisfaction while lowering costs. COPC will bring to the table the same rigorous quality processes used by over 1,500 organisations across sectors and geographies,” said Cliff Moore, Chairman and Co-Founder, COPC Inc.

Aegis has already tied up with leading services companies in banking, telecom, insurance and retail for industry-academia partnership and also for interning and placements opportunities for the students.

About AegisAegis is a world-leading outsourcing services partner for more than 135 clients and with over two decades of leadership in total customer lifecycle management. The company has more than 39,000 employees across 42 locations, with a presence in ten countries, serving verticals such as BFSI, Telecom, Healthcare, Travel & Hospitality, Consumer Goods, Retail and Technology. The company specializes in tailor-made solutions that cover the entire spectrum of customer and business experiences—across business processing, technology, and shared services—and offers customized engagement models to further facilitate the ease of doing business. Aegis is wholly owned by the Essar Group—a US$15 billion conglomerate. For more information, please visit www.aegisglobal.com.”

About SQ CentreService Quality (SQ) Centre is an international management consulting and training organisation, founded by Singapore Airlines (SIA) and SPRING Singapore (The Standards, Productivity and Innovation Board) in1990. To-date, we have shared our expertise in Customer Experience and Innovation with 5,000 organisations from more than 20 countries worldwide.

SQ Centre distills the best of SIA’s internationally acclaimed service philosophy and infuses it with SPRING’s experience in setting standards for business excellence and innovation, to deliver the business advantage that organisations need to provide outstanding customer value, quality and performance.

About COPC International Inc.Customer Operations Performance Center Inc. (COPC Inc.) is the world's leading authority on service-chain operations management, including performance improvement for buyers and providers of customer service, customer contact center and business process outsourcing operations. Since 1996, COPC Inc. has helped more than 1,000 organizations in 50 countries improve customer service by using the COPC® Family of Standards, the industry's first and most comprehensive set of performance management operating models for customer service operations. Today, it remains the only performance-driven and industry-governed global best practices model that simultaneously increases both customer satisfaction and profitability. For further information, please visit www.copc.com.